


To the second

by dragdragdragon



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: All the Snart siblings feelings!, Angst, Domestic Violence, Gen, Len-centric, Leonard Snart as a kid, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Pre-Slash, domestic abuse, family of rogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5340356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragdragdragon/pseuds/dragdragdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Len plans heists down to the second, not just for the rush he feels after his heists succeed, but because he has to.</p><p>He remembers his first clearly, etched in his brain forever.</p><p>Or</p><p>Lewis's lessons have never left Len's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the second

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, @writerdragonfly for the cheerleading! 
> 
> Anon had asked about empathic!Len growing up as a child in the hands of Lewis and mentioned Michael Scofield. I don't know if I got empathic!Len, but I kind of ran with low latent inhibition and that turned into this.
> 
> I wrote this really fast, so if there are any typos and things like that please tell me!

Len plans heists down to the second, not just for the rush he feels after his heists succeed, but because he _has_ to.

He remembers his _first_ clearly, etched in his brain forever.

\------------------------------------------------------

After one of Dad’s cruel lessons, - that Lenny had purposely started as his dad was becoming too fixated on Lisa - Lenny was deemed old enough to be look out. He had just turned 11 as if becoming a pre-teenager meant he needed to start learning his father’s craft.  
  
At first light, Lenny stood at the corner of 8th and Main with a yo-yo in his hand - the paint: a shiny glossy firehouse red and the string: rough and rigid against his skin - as Lewis broke into a jewelry shop with another thief. He was suppose to swing his new toy around while paying attention to any approaching figures. 

Instead, he stood there, the yo-yo completely still, as he listened to the crickets chirping, to the broken glass from his father’s carelessness and to the one or two cars filtering past his corner. Instead, he counted the seconds and every second that passed, his nerves start to rattle more and more like an inescapable pit of tar.As if any second, his access to oxygen would disappear.

After 758 seconds passed, a police vehicle creaked up, spitting gravel. The engine whined as it was being turned off. From that sound, Lenny knew exactly who it was. The partly dented door - verdant green paint was embedded in the deep scratches, bright against the white standard issue color - opened to reveal none other than his dad’s partner, Mike. The pit in Lenny’s stomach grew bigger, consuming every nerve.

_Don’tfuckupdon’tfuckupdon’tfuckuppleasedon’tfuckup._

“Hey slugger. What are you doing up so early? Where’s your dad?” Mike said as he laid his hand on Lenny’s shoulder.  
  
Len flinched as Mike accidently dug his fingers into a fresh bruise. Mike’s normally kind hazel eyes looked worn, sunken in; his clothes - a grey button up stained from day old strawberry filling from his favorite donut shop and ratty blue jeans - were rumpled. Mike hadn’t been sleeping and he wasn’t on duty. Lenny gave him a shaky smile willing every particle in his body to be normal, to look normal, but he trembled under Mike’s hand.

“Hey,” Lenny mumbled looking down to his feet.

His sneakers were even more scruffed up than the night before and barely held together. At 869 seconds, he kicked at the sidewalk, hoping for a nonexistent miracle, hoping that if he looked up, Mike would be gone.

“Lenny, look at me.” Mike commanded, his gravelly voice cold and hard.

Len raised his head up; he could feel fat drops fall on his cheek.

“Did Lewis do this?” Mike’s voice turned to steel as he tug a part of Lenny’s collar to the side.

He revealed a dark purple bruise underneath Lenny’s collarbone and a fresh jagged scar right in the middle of the black hole of a mark.

At 938 seconds, Lenny hiccuped before pulling away. “Go. You need to go away,” he tried to shout, but it came out hoarse and high pitched.

He started to turn to run, hoping Mike would chase him, or Mike would leave and he could go back to being a look out.

Instead, Dad with his heavy feet - how did Len miss his entrance? How did Mike miss it?- cocked his gun - a pistol stolen from lock-up - and pointed it, first at Lenny’s twisted form before moving it to point at the center of Mike’s bald shiny head.

“What are you doing, son?” his dad growled in a control manner; anger simmering right below the surface.

With the empty hand, he pulled Mike’s gun out of the holster, before backing away. The thief - blond shaggily beard and greasy hair - was hunched slightly over with the black cloth bag thrown over his left shoulder. He stood there watching with his pebbly eyes and smug tug of his lip.

“Lewis,” Mike said raising his hands up. “We don’t have to do any-”

Pop! A bullet ripped into Mike’s skull annihilating the facial structure and spraying blood and brain matter onto the side of Lenny’s face and body as he instinctively curled away from the noise.

“I hope you are learning your lesson, son. Always be aware of your surroundings.” Dad said laughing before quickly turning around and shooting his accomplice.

Lenny’s tears started to fall in earnest as he couldn’t move, frozen in horror.

“And for fuck’s sakes, Leonard. Grow some balls and stop blundering around like an idiot,” Dad said as he places Mike’s gun in Mike’s left hand and the stolen pistol in the thief's before grabbing the bag of jewels. “Now, let’s go. I’m starving.”

When they arrived back home, Len showered until the water turned ice cold, until it ran clear instead of pink. He, then, hid in a ball underneath his bed, silently crying as Mike’s head blows up repeatedly in his head. 300 seconds later, Lisa with large worried round eyes and chubby arms - the tiny burn mark on the side of her bicep barely noticeable but fresh; Len knows Dad pinched his cigarette butt right there - crawls underneath the bed. She doesn’t have to say anything as she curls into his arms, trying to radiate comfort as Len stares at Lisa’s tiny angry mark. He tried with all of his will to erase Lisa’s mark away with his mind; to erase the image of Mike’s skull bursting into fragments out of his head.

\------------------------------------------------------

Every death following Mike’s had been just as excruciating and difficult, but Len had gotten better and better at masking his emotions until one day, all he could feel was cold, bitter and sharp, wrapping around his heart like a shield. He still wears it, carries it around as a lesson on what happens to the people he touches - the innocents, the strangers, and anyone he remotely cares for.

Lisa - the only person Len had the courage to put his body in harm’s way for - was the exception.

So, when Barry Allen and his suit of good deeds - Len wants to tease Barry for wearing a leather superhero costume but knows from inspecting the fibers, it’s not - rescues Lisa from his dad’s terrifying hold, Len could feel the force field around his heart start to thaw.

56 seconds into their conversation, Barry looks back to meet Len’s gaze. Barry’s eyes, sincere and honest, are a beautiful pine green speckled with sunbursts of gold; Len could swim in them. Barry’s voice turns hopeful.

“Today just proved what I already know. There’s good in you, Snart.”

Len doesn’t look away, but he can feel his eyebrow furl as he glares harder as if glaring would change Barry’s words. Len’s grip on the the phone and on his wrist tighten as he wills his body to freeze, but inside he’s trembling. He can feel his heart break away from the castle of ice he had built up. His defenses are tumbling away at Barry’s words.

 _Where’s the good? How am I good?_ he thinks again and again. He didn’t protect the people Lewis had murdered, that he had murdered. He was barely able to protect Lisa and her many scars from Lewis’s broken bottles and cigarettes.

He’s barely holding it together, but he has learned his lesson over and over. Though his father is finally dead, - from a broken heart - his legacy still lives on. Len knows how to put on a facade, to _pretend_.

As the guards lead him away, Len smirks at Barry smugly, “Be seeing you.”

Len knows next time he sees Barry, it won’t be the same.


End file.
